Aug/103
Artist in Residence
Smells like victory.
Wow, I have some amazing news.
Every year, the Scott Joplin Foundation invites one musician to be their Artist in Residence for the year. This person is in Sedalia, MO for a week doing a Scott Joplin/Sedalia history outreach to local schools. The list of people who have done this reads like a who’s who in ragtime, including my mentor, friend, and all-around musical genius Tony Caramia.
And guess who is the Artist in Residence for 2011? THIS GUY. [points to self]
It basically breaks down to this: 11 schools, 5 days, 2 mini-concert/sessions each morning and afternoon for a total of 20 during the week, and then the week is capped off with a benefit concert of some sort on Friday night. I’m the youngest person they’ve ever asked to do it, which is awesome. The hope is that I’ll be able to connect with the kids, which shouldn’t be hard considering I’m already plotting how to turn Lady Gaga into ragtime.
I first went to Sedalia in 1998. I was 15, and I had to sneak onto a piano when my dad was in the bathroom in order to get a chance to play. Now I’m the Artist in Residence. Artist! With a capital “A”! That’s pretty awesome 
Jul/101
Heavy Is the Head (That Sells the Kanmuri)
...they painted that handicapped sign after I parked there...
My Toyota Camry is nearing the end of its useful life, and I’m kind of freaking out about it.
It’s not my first car. That honor goes to a 1995 Ford Thunderbird that my dad and I bought in Winter Park, FL in 2000. It’s not even my second car, a 1998 Honda Accord I bought from my sister. Still, this Camry and I go way back, and in some ways losing this one hurts more than the other two.
I’ve got this thing, that I contracted from my late grandmother, about objects. A sane person looks at a Toyota Camry with 209k miles on it and goes, “Okay, you’ve put $4500 into it in four months. There’s no end in sight for potential repairs. It’s time to stop putting money into such an old car.” A Martin, however, looks at that sad jalopy and sees his sixteen-year-old self sitting at the Toyota dealership on a sunny summer afternoon laughing with his brother, convincing his father to get a rear spoiler and a sunroof “because that will make it the sports car you should buy yourself,” all while his young brother-in-law sighs at the wastefulness of wood paneling around air conditioning vents not realizing that this memory, and a thousand others made and not yet made, would forever be taken away from him months later by a tractor-trailer’s unsecured tire careening into his car on the interstate. To this vision a sane person goes “Mur?” but that is just one of the moments that come to me when I look at this car, one of a hundred pictures in time that weren’t developed by Kodak but capture a moment in radiant color. And now it’s coming time to let that car go.
Jul/100
The Droid You’re Looking For
Can you hear my guilt now? Good.
I have the Internet in my pocket. And yes, it’s excited to see you.
This is not “neat,” “nifty,” or “nice.” This is huge. This is the sectumsempra of tech wizardry. The technological past is bleeding in a watery pile on the ground, as I just booked a ZipCar from my phone. In the middle of the street. At 9:30 PM. For a kid who spent his nerdy teenage years in the 1990s on dial-up, this is freaking sorcery, people.
Sadly, if there is an Apple fanboy Hell, I am on my way to it because I, dear Reader, didn’t buy an iPhone.
I bought a Droid. Worse still, I really like it.
That’s right. Like a modern day Modred, I stabbed Apple Inc., my favorite company on the planet who makes all my computers and who I happily worked for not once but twice, in the heart and bought a phone from their biggest and most dangerous competitor.
Now, the fact that I’m typing this on a six-year old iBook reveals my true allegiance. I am an Apple nut, have been so since 2005, and will continue to be for the duration of my computing life.
So what drove me into the muscly arms of Android? For starters, Apple’s devotion to AT&T. The exclusivity agreement, which made a lot of sense back in 2007, has kept me iPhone-less for years. I have heard this “but the iPhone is coming to Verizon!” stuff for over a year now and guess what: I don’t buy it. The latest word is January 2011, but Apple’s exclusivity agreement with AT&T is good through 2012, and Apple has yet to break it. By then, I’ll be eligible for a new phone.
Jul/100
The Masters at Work
This picture can barely contain the power.
If the dusty corner of the musical world that is ragtime has rock stars, they would be Brian Holland and Jeff Barnhart.
I was 15 years old when I first heard them play together. They were then the age I am now, and had just discovered the kind of magic musical synergy — Brian, with his classical technique, control, and flourish; Jeff with his power and energy — that has made them legends in their own time.
To wit, with help from the epic Danny Coots:
I’m not ashamed to admit that the 5-minute mark to the end makes me twitch with glee.
Always fun to watch the masters at work
Jun/102
Reviews Are Weird
The hat is offended.
Okay. So:
Martin Spitznagel, a 27-year-old with growing technical prowess, moved next into novelty pieces. He played Joseph Lamb’s “Hot Cinders,” a simple piece built on a two-note pattern, followed by Billy Mayerl’s 1927 hit “Marigold,” a leisurely paced excursion of surges and softness that faded away on high light notes. Spitznagel then played one of the oddest and hardest pieces of the entire festival, Arthur Schutt’s “Blue in the Black Keys,” a charging work that changed keys every few bars. (Monett Times, 06/18/10)
Is this a… uh… good review? I can’t really tell. “Growing technical prowess” sounds like I’m either a Chia Pet who needs watered or a special-needs musician. “Martin has clearly been trying really hard to get better.” Someone get me a helmet to wear.
For comparison, read the next paragraph of the article, which reviews Paul Asaro:
Asaro played the most strenuous pieces with impeccable ease. His fingers danced through James P. Johnson’s “After Tonight” and “Blueberry Rhyme,” and brought out exotic atmosphere in Fats Waller’s “Martinique” from a 1943 musical. Asaro closed with his specialty, the romping “Caravan,” written by Juan Tizol for Duke Ellington.
Okay, first, Paul is impeccable, his fingers do dance, and his “Caravan” is considered a fire hazard it’s brought down so many houses. That’s beside the point. Read the two reviews again and tell me this: Which pianist would you rather listen to? One that’s “impeccable,” “exotic,” “romping,” and whose fingers “dance,” or one that’s “growing,” “leisurely,” and “simple”? Exactly. My review, by comparison, reads like a book report. “Next up was Martin Spitznagel, who clearly played more notes than the other pianists.” Sigh. For a musician who tries to be musical above all else, this is a pretty disappointing review.
May/101
Anderson & Whoa
...because all pianists hang out in fields in their free time...
It’s hard to believe YouTube is just five years old. Like cellphones, the web, and barcodes, it’s hard to remember the world before it, even for those of us, like moi, who were around.
One of the best parts of YouTube, besides of course the abundance of piano playing cats, is finding other human pianists and musicians. Two of the best I’ve found are Anderson and Roe, a dynamic duo that is doing so many things right. Their videos have high production values, spunk, attitude, and best of all they’re damn fine piano players. They also do epic arrangements of Star Wars music, so they had me at hello.
Here’s there latest video, a dizzying version of Mozart’s “Rondo alla Turca.” Of course, this being my website, it’s an arrangement they’ve titled “Ragtime alla Turca.” Gotta love it below:
It’s great to see artists of this caliber experimenting with ragtime! And if the audience reaction at the end, which looks more like they just scored a touchdown to win a game than concluded a piano performance, is any indication, it looks like this music I love is in pretty good shape
Apr/101
Whiplash
Nowhere is there a more happier crew.
I could seriously change my last name to “McFly” with all the time-traveling I’ve been doing. So far this week I’ve been in the present, nine years in the past, ten years in the past, forty years in the future, and three days from today.
As Marty would say, “This is heavy.”
Jess and I left DC on Friday night and flew to Orlando for the first time since I graduated from film school there in 2001. Our mission? A five-day excursion with her family to Disney World. Criminal as it sounds, I only made it to Disney World one time (for all of 6 hours) when I lived in Orlando. A classmate of mine dated a girl who worked at the park and got us free tickets, and we went to MGM Studios for one of their Star Wars Weekends. Those of you who’ve been there know that six hours at Disney World is like standing in the lobby of the MOMA and saying you’ve done the museum. It doesn’t really count.
We landed in Orlando at 10 PM, and from there we caught “Disney’s Magical Express” which, frankly, is neither magical nor express. The park is 15 miles from the airport, and we got to the hotel at 1:13 AM. We were on the Disney bus as long as we were on the airplane. Something is wrong with this picture.
Apr/101
The Train Town Secret
This rag will self-destruct in four measures.
Shh. I’m not even supposed to be typing about this. But I had to tell someone, and who better to confide in than the Internet?
I’ve finished a new piece. Only I can’t play it for you. I can’t post a video. Hell, I can’t even post a screenshot. The rules are clear: “Rags which have been previously published, formally or informally, or which have been premiered at a
public gathering will not be considered. A statement that the composition conforms to this requirement must
accompany the submitted rag.”
That’s right, the Scott Joplin Foundation (http://www.scottjoplin.org) is hosting a ragtime composition contest, the first in many years. They’ve commissioned a piece called “The Train Town Rag,” which is in honor of the the sesquecentennial of Sedalia, MO, as well as the 30 years of ragtime festivals held there. Pretty cool. But then take into account that there is an obscenely huge (by ragtime standards) first prize of $500 to the winner (and $250 to the first among losers i.e., 2nd place), and you have the makings of my latest obsession, “Operation New Rag” (it’s like Desert Storm only with more syncopation).
I’ve been on it like blood on a cat.
Classic ragtime, for the 99% of you who have no idea what I’m talking about, refers to rags that follow a defined sequence of sections: Introduction (optional), Section A with repeat, Section B with repeat, Section A transition (optional), Section C with repeat, Section D with repeat, Coda (optional). Us cool kids write it like so: Intro AA BB A CC DD Coda. Sections A and B are usually in the same key, Section C is in the subdominant of that key, and Section D can either stay in the subdominant or head back to the original key. If this sounds a lot like most every Joplin rag you’ve ever heard, that’s because he’s the one who invented the form.
Apr/100
Lame
I’m going to print this out and show it to the next street person who asks me for money.
Thanks, college.
Mar/103
Try Harder or Quit
I need to become this person.
My French teacher in high school had a thing. Whenever a student would come to talk to him about late homework, he would curtly ask, “Is this a big long story ending with ‘I don’t have it’?” And invariably, if the student (usually me) indicated that yes, this was indeed a story ending with “I don’t have it,” he would quickly go, “Okay, sorry. Better luck next time.”
My point: Hi. Sorry. I’ve been a negligent blogger. The reason why? A big long story ending with “I don’t have it.” Moving on.
There are few things more pleasurable for a person interested in ragtime, stride, and early jazz than finding other, ridiculously talented people who are also into it. The internet is more adept at causing this phenomenon than any technology ever, and helped me discover this guy. His name is Bernd Lohtzky. He’s a German. And he might be one of the best interpreters of this style of music I’ve ever heard.
To wit:
It’s hard to communicate how watching something like this makes me feel. To be honest, it elicits a mountain of self-doubt. First, I’ve been thinking about ragging/striding this etude for a long time. It lends itself to it very well. And then I see this and… I quit. I mean, I cannot do what this guy does. I don’t think I ever will be able to. His playing is nearly flawless. He has no trouble keeping rhythm. It’s effortless and beautiful and sparkling. Listen to some of his other videos on YouTube. He plays Jimmy Johnson’s “Caprice Rag” like it’s a piece for children. My playing sounds sodden and weak in comparison.
Welcome
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